Apple’s share of the tablet market slumped from 64 per cent to 57 per cent in the last three months of 2011 according to iSuppli. The reason behind the drop they believe is the Amazon Kindle Fire, which sold 3.9 million devices in the six weeks leading up to Christmas. The Kindle Fire came into second place by with a huge lead with the Samsung Galaxy Tab at 8 per cent and the Barnes and Noble Nook at 7 per cent.
The interesting part about these statistics is they don’t indicate a drop in sales for Apple. Despite the rise of the Kindle Fire, it appears that it’s a case of more people adopting lower-priced tablets rather than less people buying iPads.
Apple posted record sales figures of 15.4m during Q4 of 2011, so while the Kindle Fire is cutting into its overall share of the market they are not eating Apple’s sales.
If we are to see some head to head competition it will be if Amazon launches a more premium 10 inch tablet or Apple a smaller 7 or 8 inch iPad.
Via techradar
